Thursday, August 29, 2013

Hard at work.

I've been crazily working on fiber. My etsy shop doesn't show it, but I've been busy. I've dyed and carded fiber for October's Phat Fiber box and am working on making it all into sample rolags. I've also dyed fiber for November's rolags but haven't carded anything yet. In non-Phat Fiber news I've dyed fiber for what was meant to be sandy/beach themed rolags, but ended up more bright and sunny as well as lush blues for a water theme and in the dye pot are greens for an earth/forest theme. I'm having a grand time with my blending board - the rolags might not always look "perfect" but I'm ridiculously happy with them.

These are about to go into the shop:

Here's my process (in not-great-light) for the sunny yellow not-beach-themed rolags.
I started with my board, a paintbrush (which I didn't use), two dowels, and the carded batts (polwarth, soy silk, alpaca, shetland, firestar, and some suffolk).

One of the batts unrolled. I love the soy silk bits and the sunny polwarth.

The board loaded with fiber. Instead of using the paintbrush I used my "burnishing" brush (a wire pet brush) to pack in the fibers.

The first rolag is done! Woo!

I got twenty-two rolags from the two batts. About 4.85 ounces of fiber.

Natalie -You spin from the end of the rolag. There's no need to predraft or unroll and they're extremely portable (grab a few with a spindle rather than carrying around a long piece of roving). I think they're delightful to spin from. If you google "how to spin a rolag" there are a bunch of great videos. This one is especially beautiful: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9whxLKO-C2o